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Show I A GREAT ACTOR IS DEAD. Richard Mansfield is doad. His passing pass-ing was expected by those who wore close enough to him to know how seriously se-riously his health ha-l been undermined; under-mined; hut to the general public the news camo as a shock. They wanted Mr. Mansfield to live, and therefore assumed that ho would live; they loved the actor and profoundly distrusted dis-trusted th.e press agent; and to all reports of tho groat man's critical condition the world turned a deaf ear. There was a further justification for i this attitude in the a-ror's age ho j was only 60. But love and years and ! probabilities have all ceased to count, II and wo must look for another Cyrano and Beaucalre, another Chevrial and ! j Dimmorsdalo, and Joky 11 and Hyde. : j Shall we find them, asks the Denver j j News, i To say that Mr. Mansfield was a i great actor is wholly superfluous. To ' say more with authority is impossible. There is no standard of comparison. Acting, like singing an '. playing the violin, defies exact measurement. Up to a certain point the player's art is a matter of line and rale. But when that point is passed measurement is impossible; and until that point is passed measurement is unnecessary for no one is interested. Mansflold was far past that point and that is all one can say. & W. W. Booth says: Tle death to the actor is a deep loss to the stage. , I Aside from his being a great actor, the greatest of today, he was strict in his stand for tho proprieties and hid constant con-stant aim was the olevatlon of the drama, and the standard of his profession. profes-sion. Many an actor who worked with him, and many an actross, too, may have found fault with h:s restrictions, but there nevdr was an artist who left him, who had not learned something to his advantage. The e are men in tho mimic world as there are in the real world, and Mansfield was in every respect a man. Studont, actor and teacher, was tho rare combination of mind and matter in lus case and it will be long before -o place will be filled on the stage. |